Points
by Medivi
Summary: Prompt from Dragon Age Writer's Corner  DAWC : Write a short piece highlighting a companion character's hobby.   Setting DA2 - set between chapters 9 and 10 of my main fic "Another Kind of Tranquility


_Note: Set in my slightly AU world "Another Kind of Tranquility"._

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><p><strong>Points<br>**_Prompt from DAWC: /forum/Dragon_Age_Writers_Corner/95729/_

The blade darts, piercing fabric with the ease of steady practice, leaving a slender trail of crimson in its wake. Aveline's fingers twitch, shifting their grip, her eyes narrowing in focus as she jabs the point in a quick flurry, moving the gleaming metal in and out with precise, steady movements. Not a single drop of sweat mars her furrowed brow - these practiced motions are a soothing routine for a soul disturbed.

Something wicked is winding its way through the guard. Something that set bandits on an empty stretch of road. Something that sets the guard captain to a raging fury, sending Aveline away from his office in censure. She is not the only one taken aback by this.

_Someone's priorities are not straight. No, his priorities are all tangled and knotted up in some matter I cannot see._

Light glints from metal as she shifts fingers and hands, mind wandering as her eyes fix on her target, her movements a ceaseless flow. The tongue-lashing has served only to awaken her to possibilities and suspicions. Many dismiss her as merely brawny bluster, a stout woman all hard edges and stern features. But her mind hones in on details, taking disparate pieces of information and assembling the puzzles into something recognizable.

It does not surprise her, this gut certainty of Guard Captain Jevan's suspected duplicity. The man is a swine, obsequious and self-serving, but as with many unpleasant things, these do not mean he is entirely a fool. He commands loyalty with special privileges, disloyalty with harassment and adversity or work so boring and tedious as to drive a woman mad. These are the things that set Aveline's blood boiling, that sets her hands to their current familiar motions, the repetition freeing her mind to process all the questions she must find an answer to.

The door opens and the needle slips through the fabric at just the wrong angle, sliding into an unprotected finger with all the force of these heavy thoughts behind it.

"Bollocks!" The mutter is accompanied by the swift folding of cloth, needle and thread, tucking the little busywork into a palm. A quick glance upwards reveals another guardswoman, her short brown hair mussed, a helmet tucked neatly beneath one arm.

"Aveline!" The newcomer strides over with a hand outstretched, her dazed expression a mixture of gratitude and amazement. "I owe you...! That stretch on the coast - that was my beat last night... I..." Standing, Aveline accepts the hand, discreetly setting the needlepoint upon the table beside her chair. Pulled into an abrupt hug; the flame-haired woman pats the other awkwardly, with more of a fistpounding than perhaps necessary.

"Just your beat? Alone?" Aveline's suspicions narrow, her focus coming to an intent point that sobers Brennan a little.

"Ye...yes? Its been light lately, hardly any trouble for weeks, and the courier side jobs don't need more than..."

"Courier jobs?"

"Yes and... it was strange that last night's was particularily heavy. Wonder if..." The other woman shrugs, yawning. "Of course, a bunch of us had to go clean up your little fencing match, so I ended up passing it to Donnic, he'll be delivering it after his low-town beat..."

Aveline's sudden departure leaves a vacuum of space in her wake as she makes a bee-line for the door, pausing only to slap on gear.

_There may be little time. Maker, I hope I am wrong._ The thought does not reassure the warrior woman. Her instincts are rarely wrong.

Brennan, worn from her long recent watch, only shakes her head after the other woman, somewhat fondly. Something has fallen with Aveline's abrupt departure, and the tired guard stoops, picking up a delicate piece of embroidery. Bemused, she cannot stifle the laugh that surges forth, though glances around guiltily to make sure the stern Aveline had not returned. With a sigh, she lays the piece of needlepoint neatly across the table, eyeing the battle scene rendered there with a curious eye. A needle dangles off the edge of the table, trailed by a long thin strand of scarlet thread.


End file.
